


Everlong

by AHS



Category: Actor RPF, Queer as Folk (US) RPF
Genre: M/M, RPS - Freeform, Songfic, song - "Everlong" by Foo Fighters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-16
Updated: 2007-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:50:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHS/pseuds/AHS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Songs hold memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everlong

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I made this up.

Gale didn’t believe in CD players in your fucking car. Or anywhere, really. He missed vinyl. He missed putting the needle in the groove. He missed the little crackly pops, followed by the as yet unmatched fullness of sound. Records had fucking _character_ , man.

Not that, in 2007, he was living in the Dark Ages with no CDs. He had tons. But not in the car. Or truck, as was the case. When driving, the fun was in relying on the radio. As many chances for great music (or so bad you got to make endless fun of it) as stations you could find. The unpredictability of the songs you heard, especially when you kept hitting different buttons, changing station and genre, was the best part.

After arriving in Atlanta and renting the pickup, one of the first gems he’d heard was the David Bowie and Bing Crosby “Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy” duet. You never heard that, except maybe at Christmas. And it was fucking March.

He’d been visiting his family and old stomping grounds for the last four days. What else to do when you’ve recently been “killed off” and left in between projects. A few indie films in the can, but none he particularly wanted to promote. Except the one he produced, and he wasn’t exactly top of anybody’s list to talk to about that. So, he came home, to recharge his spirit or some shit.

It felt really good. Felt like another life, but it was good. He saw his parents, his sister. A random cousin or two. Old friends. To their credit, they didn’t ask a lot of Hollywood questions. His aunt asked if he’d found a hot young starlet to marry yet. Gale just shook his head, pretended to laugh.

But it was his mom who asked about Randy, at dinner the second night.

_“Have you talked to Randy lately?”_

_“No. I mean, not really. Phone call every few… months. He’s really busy, doing his theatre thing.”_

_“You two were such close friends. Just seems a shame for you to lose touch.”_

_“We haven’t lost touch, Mom. We’ve just… got lives. We’re fine.”_

But after that he lost his appetite for all his favorite foods, and he’d been craving real Southern cooking for weeks. He knew his oh so Pentecostal mother wouldn’t be encouraging them to be closer if she knew just how close to Randy Gale wanted to be.

Gale also knew the best way to keep loving your family was to take them in small doses, so he knew just when to bring his visit to a close. Having the rental, he passed on the airport goodbye in favor of driving himself and rockin’ out with his radio. Window down, sunglasses on, hair blowing. No singing, though. He wouldn’t do that to the poor unsuspecting people passing by.

As he listened to the songs that found him, Gale thought about how songs always have memories tied to them. The Beach Boys’ _Kokomo_ played, and he remembered being in college at some kind of party and making out with this drunk blond girl wearing a grass skirt… who actually threw up in his mouth a little bit. Gale figured it could have put him off kissing for life, but thankfully he just chose to be wary of drunk blond girls.

Gale had his first kiss with tongue when he was 12 and ¾ years old, with a girl named Melissa. She was 14, which made it even cooler. And he remembered how the softness of her tongue and the things she did with it made unimportant his worries of getting some part of his mouth caught in her braces, every time he heard _Urgent_ by Foreigner.

Gale laughed at himself and the cheesiness of the some of the songs that made up his life. But then he changed the station, and he wasn’t ready for the memory tie that came next. The song he landed on made his stomach flip and his heart try to crash its way out of his chest. From the opening chords of acoustic guitar, Gale was back in Toronto. Their last night. Two years ago. In that bar. In Randy’s arms.

 _Hello_  
_I’ve waited here for you_  
_Everlong…_

*~*~*

They’d finished everything. Their last love scene, their last scene. Brian and Justin had been given their oddly unresolved, semi-… make that pretty fucking depressing ending. Gale and Randy had burned the evil cocksocks and cried giving sappy goodbye speeches to the crew. Both of them were leaving the very next day, to go live and work on opposite ends of the US.

They left the studio together and headed for the bar without needing to decide to do so. They treated it like any other after work drink. They talked about books and movies and why the hell is it called a Long Island Iced Tea. They talked about work, even. But not about the fact that it was all over. Not about their mutual fear that it might possibly be the last time they saw each other… if not forever, at least for too damn long.

When things grew quiet, they would fill in the silences with anything they could think of, just to keep talking and keep the night from ending. But then some local band began to play, and the front woman with the yearning voice began to sing.

 _Tonight_  
_I throw myself into_  
_And out of the red_  
_Out of her head she sang_

And Gale decided he wanted to dance with Randy.

“C’mon.”

Randy looked down at his hand, suddenly in Gale’s, and let Gale pull him up off the stool. But he didn’t understand. “Where?”

“Dance floor. You know me, I never want to dance. But I fucking want to dance with you, Rand.”

 _Come down_  
_And waste away with me_  
_Down with me_

“But the song, it's… slow.”

“Then we might want to dance that way. C’mon. We know we’re good at it.”

“There’s a lot of things we’re good at… I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want to do _them_ in public.” Randy was apparently not drinking nearly enough.

“Let’s start with dancing.” A thought flitted across Gale’s brain to say something meaningful but lame, about saving the last dance for him, but even half drunk that got filtered before it could reach his mouth. “You know, before we… both…”

Randy stopped chewing through his bottom lip when it seemed to sink in that it might be all they had. “Okay.”

 _Slow how_  
_You wanted it to be_  
_I’m over my head_  
_Out of her head she sang_

And he let Gale walk him past the pool tables, in front of where the girl was singing. And he kind of put his hands up, like he was expecting Gale to lead him in a choreographed waltz. Gale just laughed, tucked his arm around the back of Randy’s neck in that way he so often did, and pulled him in to his chest. Randy relaxed. Randy let his face burrow into the dip of Gale’s shoulder. Randy held on for dear life.

Gale and Randy and all the cast had been going to that bar for so long at that point that no one even looked up when they walked in anymore. It wasn’t too crowded that night, and the two men dancing didn’t draw much attention, except appreciative stares from the singer and the lady bartender.

It was a sad and beautiful sight.

Holding each other and swaying. Just enough to call it dancing. Their bodies, souls, fears resting on each other. The way they maybe always had.

_And I wonder  
When I sing along with you_

And Gale wondered as always at the way Randy was made to fit with him, and into him. The perfect height for Gale’s arms to lay across his shoulders and wrap around. The perfect build of hard lines of muscle and soft curves of skin to meet with Gale’s own and fill in the spaces between.

He knew in that moment that if there was such a thing as your “other half,” Randy was his.

Wasn’t really a shocking revelation. Neither was breathing in the sweet smell of Randy’s hair… feeling the heat of Randy’s skin pouring into him through his clothes… the gentle rhythm of Randy’s hips moving with his… and knowing that he wanted to find out just how completely he fit with him, into him, around him.

_If everything could ever feel this real forever  
If anything could ever be this good again_

“Why does nothing else… ever feel this good?” Gale nearly cried into Randy’s ear.

He felt Randy's fingers dig into his back and lips press his shoulder. Felt Randy’s whole body shake a little in his arms as he answered with, “Let’s go.”

They didn’t even let go of each other. Still holding onto each other’s waists, they hurried out, only pausing to grab their coats. Their eyes stayed locked, maybe straying to lips, and Gale was thinking how much he wanted to kiss Randy, for real… _Not drunk, not even really blond, definitely not a girl._

Once out in the cool night air, Randy headed for his car, and Gale stayed attached, following. He climbed into the passenger’s side and halfway over into the driver’s side until his tongue was tickling Randy’s throat and his leg was wedged between Randy’s knees and the steering wheel.

_The only thing I’ll ever ask of you  
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when_

They kissed five years of feeling into five minutes. Which leaves your lips chapped and tingling and your heart pounding and burning from the overload. Randy’s hand fumbled its way to Gale’s crotch, fondling and claiming him through the denim. Gale wanted five minutes to turn into forever. But it didn’t. Randy’s fingers stalled on the zipper, and then Randy’s mouth stalled on Gale’s mouth. And Gale felt the air stall in his lungs when Randy spoke.

“We can’t.”

Gale prayed for that whisper to mean just that they couldn’t in the car, in the bar parking lot, but he knew it meant painfully more than that. And when Randy turned the key and started the engine, Gale had nothing to do but slide away to his own side, trying to slow his breathing and pretend he hadn’t been left hard.

 _Breathe out_  
_So I could breathe you in_  
_Hold you in_

Randy wasn’t drunk. But Gale was just enough that he could close his eyes and let himself pass out until the car stopped outside of his apartment. It was all full of boxes in there. Maybe he’d trip over one in the dark on the way in and be found dead on his floor a week later.

“I’m sorry,” came Randy’s latest killing whisper. “I don’t want to lose you, I lo-…”

Gale knew he couldn’t finish the sentence, either because he had that writer boyfriend, or because it was just too pointless now that they were going to be separated, or because it would never have worked anyway. Maybe he was trying to preserve their friendship, but all it was doing was making them unable to look each other in the eye.

“You’re right,” Gale said softly, hooking a finger behind the door handle and opening it with a click. “If we’d…… I’d never have been able to leave you.”

And then he was out of the car. And that was the last they saw each other.

*~*~*

 _And now_  
_I know you’ve always been_  
_Out of your head_  
_Out of my head I sang_

That song was only four or five minutes long, but Gale heard it in his head for fifteen hours and twenty-four minutes. That’s how long it took him to drive from Atlanta to New York, so focused he stopped only twice for rest stop bathrooms and once to get some food (drive-thru). He didn’t stop to sleep or think about what the fuck he was doing. Like the fact that he had been heading for the Atlanta airport and a flight back to Los Angeles before that song played and his heart started driving north.

Or, once he’d arrived in NYC, that he had no fucking clue what he was there for… besides just… Randy.

_And I wonder  
When I sing along with you_

They hadn’t seen each other in the two years since the show ended, or even had a more than ten minute phone conversation. But Randy had at least sent him a couple of Christmas cards, the latest of which included his new address. Randy and Simon had broken up about eight months ago, and Randy had moved from Brooklyn to an apartment closer to Broadway.

Gale found Randy’s building much faster than he probably should have been able to, never having been there. And he parked in a clearly marked no parking zone, ran inside (through the rain) before he could worry about it, and knocked on #14. He could sense Randy looking at him through the peephole, which is why Randy’s face was already happy and sad, shocked and confused, when he opened the door.

_If everything could ever feel this real forever  
If anything could ever be this good again_

“Gale… what…?”

“You weren’t supposed to stop.”

Gale realized that he was probably drunker at this moment than he had been that night two years ago, he was so sleep deprived. But, as with any drunken stupidity, he let it give him courage.

“Gale, what are you doing here?”

“I don’t know, Rand, I just know the song says promise not to stop when I say when. We weren’t supposed to stop.”

“Then why did you?” Randy asked calmly.

Gale stood there with his mouth open, so pained by the simple question and obviously exhausted, Randy just wanted to take care of him.

“You look like you’re about to fall over.” Randy looked like he was two seconds from reaching out to hold Gale up. “And you’re all wet from the rain. Have you slept recently?”

“I made it from Atlanta just fine. I’m a fucking good driver.”

“You drove here from Atlanta? Oh my… Come in.” He stood back, opening the door wider, watching Gale with concern as he walked through.

“The radio played that song and all I could think was Randy.”

_The only thing I’ll ever ask of you  
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when_

Randy didn’t have to ask what song. The final straw that ended his relationship eight months ago occurred when that song had come on the radio in what had been their place, and Simon, in all romantic innocence, had asked Randy to dance. Randy wasn’t much of a crier, but a couple of tears made their way down his face, and the break-up came within a day.

Randy gently guided Gale to his couch with a hand at his back and got him to sit down. He helped him off with his too light jacket and wet shirt, then watched him lie back. “You get some rest now, okay?” he said in a soothing voice, draping an afghan over Gale‘s long body. “We’ll talk about it when you wake up.”

“Only if we promise this time,” Gale demanded, even as his eyes kept drifting shut and his words slurred.

“Promise what?” Randy asked, sitting on the edge of the couch beside him.

“Not to stop.” As soon as he’d said it, Gale fell asleep.

 _And I wonder_  
_If everything could ever feel this real forever_  
_If anything could ever be this good again_

Randy marveled at the man before him, stroking his hair off of his forehead and kissing him lightly on the lips. “I never stopped. Not really. I never could with you.”

Getting up, Randy went to his old turntable and played his Space Oddity LP quietly for Gale. Then he went to his bedroom to make a phone call to the theatre, telling them he couldn’t come in because of a family emergency. Because Gale was his family.

But not the kind you love best in small doses.

_The only thing I’ll ever ask of you  
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when_

*~*~*

_Several hours later…_

Randy looked out the window. “Gale… Gale, your truck is getting towed.”

Gale admired Randy’s naked form by the emerging moonlight. “Ah, fuck it, babe. Come back to bed.”

 

Song: “Everlong” (acoustic), by Foo Fighters


End file.
